Wreck On the Highway

One death every 13 minutes, the historical average in the U.S., is outrageous. Unfortunately, our society is not outraged. Instead, for the most part, we accept these tragedies as the cost we pay for the mobility we enjoy.- XMASTIME

I've long lamented the fact that while we swoon at 3,000 people dying a decade ago at the WTC we don't seem to give a shit about the 500,000 people who have since died in car accidents, and now here's a fascinating article stating that wine is fine:

In a working paper for the American Association of Wine Economists, Rickard and his team start off by looking at the states that allow grocery stores to sell wine, versus those that limit such sales to liquor stores. The increased competition of grocery stores selling wine, unsurprisingly, correlates with both lower wine prices and higher rates of wine consumption.

There’s a surprising public health benefit that grows out of that: States where wine makes up a larger part of total alcohol consumption tend to have lower rates of traffic fatalities.

The idea, apparently, is that wine drinkers are not get-behind-the-wheel binge drinkers:

The research does not suggest that state governments should start handing out bottles of wine as a means of reducing traffic fatalities: An increase in the aggregate amount of alcohol consumption correlates with more traffic fatalities. But Rickard’s work does suggest that what matters isn’t just how much we drink, but also what we drink — and there, state policies that effect the availability of wine can have an impact.

Well, there ya go - if you wanna cut down on the number of people killed every year on the American highway we hafta turn into France, which of course is too great a price to pay for the American Eagle clutching Jesus and his lovable, scrappy sidekick, Baby Jesus.